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just as a suggestion you could use deep freeze so if the do download any nasty things it wont have a loasting affect (this is probably not the way you want to go but i just wanted to give you the option).

card_richelieu, I checked around and found this:http://www.im-protector.com/
It seems like a decent option for you if you'd like to monitor your kids IM'ing. Only drawback is that it's not free. It costs $80 for the year but it does come with a 30 day trial. If you're not financially bound and/or don't mind spending the $80, this may be a good option for you to consider. Maybe try the trial out and see if you like it? Other than that, I'd listen to what the others are saying, especially educating your kids on certain matters in regards to IM. There's no security tool on the planet that can successfully combat ignorance to the degree that education can. Anyways, good luck.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his - George Patton

Give me a break... his kid is more safe at home infront of a computer than anywhere else... you guys act as if you've all just visited a catholic church or jacko's neverland ranch.

It sounds as if you've got 3 or 4 brands of anti-viral and firewall software on each computer... I don't even use AV software. Anything very regprot(-ish) & tripwire(-ish) is the way to go. I've kept my family malware free for years now. Before that I had a PC repair place in the ga' damn garage. YOU should also be on a limited user account. People do everything as admin except update... HAHA! And through that they will forever give *******s such as myself leverage.

Originally posted here by The Duck So let me get this straight, you want to limit your daughters' ability to download nasty things with IM?

Well, having a limited XP account does help, but not much. I suggest just letting them have AIM (which i'm sure most of their friends use) but thats just IMHO and using good AV and anti-malware software, and giving all three of them a good speech about bad and unknown things. That's what I do in my house, and my problems have been very limited, the trick is educating them about the dangers.

But if you want to go another route, I beleive there are all kinds of software that restricts users' ability to install programs on a computer, on purpose or accidently, which helps prevent 'nasty' downloads.

Well, what I would do (hehehe, here it comes), is get Trillian, pay the $25 for the Pro version, then lock it down. Send me a PM if you'd like as I've been using it for about 3 years now and have donated over 100 bucks to them (and paid for the Pro version). It's got a ton of options and a lot of security features including locking the settings with a password, etc. I'm not sure but I think you can even log to remote machines which would be good in your case. Lock the setting to make sure they can't accept ANY file transfers, no IM icons, nothing. Just to make sure, figure out the ports (I think they're listed or you can hardcode them), then lock them on the router and send that port to an IP in your range that doesn't exist (bahahahaha!).

Originally posted here by ZomBieMann77 The best protection you have is actualy being a parent. And Im not criticizing you in any way when I saw that. Just a blanket statement. 12 year old kids have no right or reason to expect privacy when it comes to computer activity. Discuss with them the dangers of chatting with people they dont know and also the danger of accepting files and what files are acceptable and what isnt. Teach them how to check files for virii when they recieve them. MOST importantly though is make sure you know what they are doing and who they are talking to. you wouldnt leave your kids in thier bedroom with some stranger off the street so why leave them alone in thier bedroom with some stranger off the net. That networking cable doesnt make it any safer than it would be on main street.

Good points on the above and if I were a parent with kids (God forbid), I'd make sure they knew without a doubt that I read everything they ever did and recite it back to them at dinner time. That age doesn't need any privacy. We had a 13 year old girl who got killed two years ago in Florida. On her machine, which was in her room hooked directly to the cable modem, they found AIM with SIX signons, FIVE of which were "promiscuous" in nature. Needless to say the logs were NOT revealed to the public. She got strangled by a 40ish year old Brazilian illegal immigrant who was married and had taken her virginity a year earlier. Keep in mind, I said 13 in the beginning. Nobody knew she was like this, she had everything going for her, straight A's, picture looked like the poster child for angel applications, etc... Realistic? Damned straight. It doesn't get any more real than that and to ensure my son/daughter's safety, while they wouldn't like what I did, I'd go to those lengths. When they realize they've got parents who give two shits (which is rare these days), and they know HOW to handle things, then they get a little back at a time.

Man, it's not even funny if I had kids in the house. I know TONS of parents who know nothing of their kids habits. Computer safety is just one of the many you need to know when protecting them but I know lots of kids who're way smarter than their parents in that aspect. I know, I was one of them . Bring it to the house, baby! See if you can get past Daddy! Hah!

Last note, I commend you for what you're trying to do. The internet was created as a method in the beginning to prevent information from being stopped entirely in case of a nuclear fallout during the Cold War just like interstates were created by Hitler (Audobon in Germany) to transport military fast and efficiently. We see where both are now.

We the willing, led by the unknowing, have been doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much with so little for so long that we are now qualified to do just about anything with almost nothing.

TheSpecialist, it's amazing how you can take Vorlin's rather helpful post and degrade it with that [sarcasm]resoundingly intellectual reply[/sarcasm]. I usually try to refrain from adding negative replies to a thread , but in your case I'll gladly make an exception.
I have an idea TheSpecialist:
How about you stop giving everyone else an attitude and maybe try to help card_richelieu?

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his - George Patton

I was looking for more technical information - not because I don't think that the education piece is the most important, but it's only one part and I would like to tackle it from various directions. I've seen IT professionals at work click on screen savers from e-mail. Everyone does something dumb now & then so while I agree education is the first line of defense - like I said, they are only 12.

I'm going to spend some more time investigating - and I have some good threads to follow from the input here. Thanks again.

\"If you give me six lines written
by the most honest man, I will find
something in them to hang him.\" C.R.

I've been using gAIM for quite a while. File transfers have improved tremendously, and the font bug is no big deal. Sometimes, somebody's text seems a bit small, but not to the point of being unreadable...and it doesn't affect overall functionality. Also, there are plugins that allow notification of mail, and the encryption is RSA style...very secure.

It also allows you to logon to several networks at once (like Trillian does), i.e. they can be on AIM, Yahoo!, Jabber, ICQ, and MSN, all at once.

A_T

P.S. - Just to show that I am not fully impartial with this post, I'm a very strong supporter of opensource, so even with gAIM's problems, I'd recommend it to anyone anyways.

lol... if you sent a gaim user a message from aim with a webding font, you'd crash their client. Call me crazy, but I don't think thats no big deal. It's not a vulnerability, really, but it was an annoying bug.